Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeycereal
This I 100% agree with. Been saying this since the 3rd copycat mass shooter way back when. The media loves to dramatize these to the max. Displaying victim emotions and portraying the shooters as more powerful than they are. They aren't really, just messed up wimps who are wannabe tough guys with a gun to shoot kids and people praying in churches. Then the media just sloshes on the cheese, which feeds into the minds of the sick anti-socials who were already glorifying other shooters. The shooter stories should be small and in the back page somewhere, no mention of shooter's name or back history. It won't happen though sadly. The media will still go after their pulitzer and happily collect their clicks.
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Bingo!
Your point about "copycat" has been irrefutably proven by independent studies many times. Whether some people like to believe it or not, sensationalizing these crimes DOES result in more like crimes. Anyone can read that data with just a few mouse clicks. In other words, we have within our ability the way to cut back significantly on these crimes. We've had that ability ever since "copycat" crimes became a thing.
But we don't.
Which, of course, begs the question: why not?
The only logical answer to that question is one that is too terrible to consider, but inevitably the same answer pops up. If the powers-that-be DON'T attempt to employ a method that is statistically certain to reduce the killing--then there must be, in the minds of at least some, a number of dead kids that is acceptable if those dead kids lead to that goal, which is apparently a no-gun society.
All we need to do is to require factual reporting on such incidents and ban the sensationalizing. By doing so we could cut back on the number of fatalities by these copycats by possibly half. Possibly more. Media of course would try to hide behind the First Amendment but there is legal precedent; if there is a PROVABLE link between media sensationalizing and resultant harm, media can be held responsible for that. But to date I've not even seen the whisper of a movement to limit media over-sensationalizing. It CAN be done. It SHOULD be done.
Or do we just go around chasing shadows and write these kids off as martyrs to a worthy (in the estimation of some, apparently) cause?